Selling Squishmallow Dupes and Crochet Copies on Etsy: The Trade Dress Trap

Squishmallows are one of the most copied toys on the planet, and Etsy is where a lot of that copying happens. Search the site and you'll find thousands of "crochet Squishmallow" patterns, "squishy plush inspired by Squishmallow," "Squishmallow dupe" pillows, and amigurumi versions of specific characters like Cam the Cat or Avery the Mallard.

Most of the sellers behind those listings believe they're safe because they made the item by hand, or because they swapped the word "Squishmallow" for "squishy marshmallow plush." Both beliefs are wrong, and the reason is a part of IP law that plush sellers almost never think about: trade dress.

If you sell — or are thinking about selling — anything in the squishy-plush category on Etsy, this guide explains exactly what's protected, why "handmade" and "inspired by" don't save you, and how to build a plush shop that won't get torn down by a single brand report.

Who Actually Owns Squishmallows

Squishmallows are owned by Kelly Toys Holdings, LLC, with the brand now run under Jazwares, LLC (a Berkshire Hathaway company through Alleghany). That ownership matters because Jazwares is a large, well-resourced company that enforces aggressively. This is not a small indie brand hoping nobody notices.

They hold a stack of overlapping rights, and an Etsy seller can trip any one of them:

• The "Squishmallows" trademark — the word itself, registered across toys, plush, apparel, and more.
• Copyright in individual characters — each named Squishmallow (the specific face, color pattern, and design of Cam, Avery, Hans the Hedgehog, etc.) is an original creative work.
• Trade dress in the overall look — the egg/rounded shape, the "Asian-style Kawaii" embroidered face, the matte velvety texture, and the soft marshmallow silhouette, taken together, as a brand identifier.

That third one is the trap, so let's spend real time on it.

Trade Dress: The Right Nobody Warns You About

Trade dress protects the overall visual appearance of a product when that appearance signals to buyers where the product comes from. It's the reason a Coke bottle's shape is protected even with no label on it. For plush toys, it means the look and feel of the toy can be protected even if you never use the brand name.

Jazwares made this strategy explicit in February 2024 when Kelly Toys sued Build-A-Bear in federal court in California, alleging its "Skoosherz" line infringed Squishmallows' trade dress. The complaint pointed to exactly the features above: "Asian-style Kawaii faces," embroidered facial features, distinctive coloring, and the same velvety texture. (Build-A-Bear countersued, arguing the claimed trade dress is invalid — but the lesson for a solo Etsy seller is the point: Jazwares will go after a billion-dollar company over plush that merely looks like a Squishmallow.)

Here's why that should change how you think:

You can be infringing even if the word "Squishmallow" appears nowhere in your shop. A round, matte, pastel plush with a simple embroidered Kawaii face reads as a Squishmallow to a buyer — and that visual association is precisely what trade dress protects. Removing the name doesn't remove the resemblance.

This is the gap most "dupe" sellers fall into. They carefully scrub the brand name, feel safe, and still produce something whose entire selling proposition is "it looks just like a Squishmallow." That selling proposition is the violation.

Why "Crochet Squishmallow" Is Its Own Problem

Crochet and amigurumi sellers occupy a special blind spot. The thinking goes: "I'm not buying and reselling their toy. I designed a crochet pattern from scratch and made it by hand with my own yarn. How can that be theirs?"

Making something by hand changes the labor involved. It does not change whose intellectual property the design embodies. A handmade copy of a copyrighted character is still a copy. We cover this dynamic in depth in our guide to selling crochet and knitting on Etsy, but the short version for Squishmallows specifically:

• A crochet plush of a named character (recreating Cam the Cat's exact face and colorway in yarn) is a derivative of a copyrighted work. Handmade or not, that's infringement.
• A crochet pattern or PDF that instructs buyers to make a recognizable Squishmallow is also infringing — and selling the instructions can be treated as contributory infringement.
• Using "Squishmallow" in your title, tags, or pattern name ("Crochet Squishmallow Pattern") adds a clean trademark violation on top of the copyright issue.

The fact that crafting communities have traded these patterns for years doesn't make them legal. It makes them un-enforced — until a brand-protection sweep changes that.

"But I've Seen Thousands of These on Etsy"

You have. It tells you nothing about your own exposure. Visible non-enforcement is not permission, and we say this constantly because it's the single most expensive misconception sellers hold — the same logic that gets people burned selling Bluey, Paw Patrol, and other kids' characters.

Three things about how plush enforcement actually unfolds:

1. Enforcement is automated and keyword-driven. Jazwares, like most major rights holders, uses brand-protection services that crawl Etsy, Amazon, and TikTok Shop for trademarked terms and image-match product photos. The word "Squishmallow" in a single tag is a beacon. We break down how these systems work in brand protection bots targeting Etsy sellers.
2. Image matching is catching up to trade dress. Modern monitoring doesn't only read text. It flags listings whose photos match the protected look — which is exactly how a no-name "squishy plush" still gets reported.
3. Etsy removes first and asks questions later. A brand report runs through Etsy's standard takedown pipeline: the listing is deactivated, you get a strike, and repeated complaints compound toward suspension. A shop you spent years building can be gone after a handful of reports.

What You Cannot Sell (Clear Violations)

Be honest with yourself about these — they're all takedown bait:

• Plush, pillows, or toys using "Squishmallow," "Squishmallows," or "Squish" in the design, title, description, or tags.
• "Inspired by Squishmallow," "Squishmallow dupe," "Squishmallow style," or "similar to Squishmallow" — naming the brand to ride its recognition is the opposite of a defense. As we explain in our piece on why "inspired by" gives you zero protection, the reference is the problem.
• Crochet or amigurumi versions of named characters (Cam, Avery, Hans, Fifi, etc.) in any medium.
• Patterns, SVGs, or digital downloads that recreate Squishmallow characters or instruct buyers to make them — digital files are enforced as hard as physical goods.
• Plush whose overall look (egg shape + matte texture + minimalist embroidered Kawaii face + pastel colorway) is plainly engineered to read as a Squishmallow, even with a different name.

What You Probably Can Sell

The plush category is not closed to you. It's the copying that's closed. There's a thriving, lower-risk business in original squishy plush — you just have to actually be original:

• Your own characters and faces. Design a plush line with its own silhouette, your own face style (different eye shape, your own embroidered details), and a name and backstory that are yours. Trade dress protects a specific look; a genuinely distinct one is yours to own — and worth protecting yourself.
• Generic plush shapes that predate Squishmallows. Round pillow plush, classic amigurumi animals, and standard stuffed-toy forms have existed for decades. The risk rises only as you converge on Squishmallows' specific combination of features.
• Accessories rather than the toy. Plush carriers, custom outfits, tags, and storage that buyers use with toys they already own — without depicting or naming the brand — sit in a much safer lane. (Naming compatibility, e.g. "fits popular squishy plush," is fine as long as you don't use the trademark; see our note on nominative use in the crochet and knitting guide.)
• Original crochet patterns for your own plush characters — these are fully yours to sell, and they're a far better long-term asset than a pattern that lives one report away from removal.

The mindset shift: stop trying to give buyers a cheaper Squishmallow, and start building a plush brand they search for by your name.

A 5-Step Compliance Check Before You List

1. Strip the brand from everywhere. Title, description, tags, alt text, shop sections, and the pattern's internal name. Tags are the most-forgotten and most-easily-scanned field — one stray "squishmallow" tag undoes a clean photo.
2. Run the "squint test" on your photos. Look at your plush the way a monitoring algorithm does. If it reads as a Squishmallow at a glance — egg shape, matte finish, that exact minimalist face — redesign the face and silhouette until it reads as yours.
3. Trademark-search your product and shop names. Before committing to a plush-line name, check it against the USPTO database. Our step-by-step trademark search guide walks through it in under ten minutes.
4. Audit listings you already have live. Enforcement waves catch old inventory. A "Squishmallow inspired" listing from last year is still a live violation today.
5. Document your design process. Keep your sketches, pattern drafts, and revision files. If you ever face a false complaint on a genuinely original plush, being able to prove your design is original is what wins the appeal.

If You've Already Received a Squishmallow-Related Takedown

Don't panic, and don't reflexively fire off a counter-notice.

• If the complaint is accurate — you used the name or copied a character or the protected look — accept the takedown, remove every related listing yourself before they're reported too, and do not relist a lightly "tweaked" version. Relisting modified versions of reported designs is one of the fastest routes to full suspension.
• If the complaint misfired — a genuinely original plush of yours got swept into a bulk takedown — you have a real dispute. Follow our step-by-step IP complaint response guide, keep your tone factual, and lead with your design documentation.
• If you've stacked up multiple strikes, switch into damage-control mode and read what to do after a second IP complaint before you touch anything else.

The Bottom Line

Squishmallows feel like easy money because demand is enormous and the toy looks simple to recreate. But Jazwares protects the brand on three fronts at once — name, character copyright, and trade dress — and that third front means you can be infringing without ever typing "Squishmallow." Handmade doesn't help. "Inspired by" actively hurts. And the thousands of dupes you see today are a backlog waiting for the next automated sweep, not a green light.

Build a plush brand that's actually yours. It's slower, it's harder, and it's the only version of this business that's still standing in a year.

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